Essay On Island Civilization

In the essay “Island Civilization: A Vision for Human Occupancy of Earth in the Fourth Millennium” Roderick R. Nash proposes the idea of clustering population on a planetary scale, in order to reduce detrimental environmental impact and deter humanity’s current course leading to self-destruction. In addition, Nash’s plan for an island utopia is a solution to which, he believes, will end this man-instigated desolation of nature and civilization expanding past sustainable limits. However, Nash’s proposition does not take into consideration all the atrocities and the problems that can result as a consequence of instigating his proposal of an Island Civilization. Altogether, Nash’s island civilization would not be a viable option for the future

Environmentalists worry so much about the well-being of the planet for merely the human species’ survival. Things such as natural disasters, which reasons.org say “Part of that response acknowledges that the forces behind these ‘natural disasters’ play a critical role in Earth’s capacity to support life.” If people are so concerned about the planet, then people should realize that these natural disasters actually help the Earth regenerate itself. Without these natural ‘disasters’, the planet would not be how it is today. As Nash continues to criticize humans, he states, “...capitalist-driven culture in its cancer-like tendency to self destruct.” Pollution and destruction of wildlife is a problem, but it is something that can be fixed, or having Earth fix itself. Nash is saying that humans are destroying the planet entirely, which is kind of ridiculous. If people were really destroying the Earth as much as Nash says, Earth itself would have already gotten rid of people through things like natural disasters, disease, or natural selection. The Earth will take care of itself and as Tom Haering says, “Nature plays no favorites: Survival of the fittest.”

Nash’s final and perhaps most far fetched idea is “Island Civilization.” He explains taking human civilization away from the large majority of land and containing it into small portions of land, thus removing our presence from the majority of the planets soil to preserve e the wilderness. Nash’s ideas of air cities and underwater cities seem almost impossible. What really seems impossible is that Earth has about 7.2 billion people, and is rapidly growing. Somehow decreasing the birthrate with Nash’s idea, “Limiting (either politically and ethically or biologically with a chip implanted at birth) every woman to the use of one egg for reproduction would in a century bring things back into the balance that Island Civilization demands.” Nash fantasizes about the ideas of no war, no border disputes, and the return of great creatures such as matadors and saber-toothed tigers. One look at human history reveals that our very nature is to expand and desire more for ourselves, than extinct creatures have appropriately earned the title of extinct. “Of course a change like this one involves compromises with human

“Many current discussions about sustainability focus on the ways in which human activity...can be maintained in the future without exhausting all of our current resources… there has been a close correlation between the growth of human society and environmental degradation - as communities grow, the environment often declines” (603).

The amount of waste that’s produced by the lack of concern for the environment is huge. We as Americans don’t see it as a total problem because we’re doing different things that we don’t pay attention to. We as people need to learn the concept of not wasting anything to harm the people and other things around us.

“In Waste Not, Want Not” author Bill McKibben, makes several arguments about how wasteful Americans are. Throughout the essay McKibben provides facts that show the degree of how much waste is built up daily. The author emphasizes waste throughout the essay by giving the reader an idea of much plastic, aluminum, paper, lithium, and food are wasted daily. If humans do not come together to help reduce the amount of waste, eventually planet earth will not be able to provide a stable environment to sustain life. Life as we know it is slowly coming closer and closer to the end, and without a joint effort to protect the environment and limit waste the end of life will come sooner than expected.

The speaker questions the 3 theories claimed by the author as the cause of the collapse of the civilization on the Eastern Island. He states that indeed the 3 theories are flawed.

We have become a very wasteful society where it seems as if everything is disposable; as a society, we need to be conscious of just how much waste we produce and what we are able to do to reduce that amount to protect our environment.

nearly 7.3 billion people can be a disaster if we don’t use many resources. The over use of natural

Sustainable development is defined as “Development that meets the needs of the present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (IISD, par. 1 ).

They say that perfection is not attainable, but what if in this messed up world there is another land where you go when you’re tired of all the imperfections. Sometimes everyone gets way too overwhelmed with life and stressed about the little things and the big things. There is an island in the Indian Ocean where all your worries will wash away. In order to get on this island you will need to explain the situation in your life and then a panel of people will decide if you meet the requirements to go to this therapy island. This is not somewhere where you can move and live forever, instead it is a little escape from life and after a certain period of time you will be required to leave. Only a certain amount of people are allowed on this

Sustainable development means that the present generations should be able to make use of resources to live better lives in such a manner that it does not compromise the ability of future generations. For sustainable development to occur, there needs to be sustainable economic, ecological and community development. Society needs to be educated about ways in which they can use resources, especially natural, in such a manner that it does not cause harm to the environment and put future generations lives at risk.

Over the course of the past few decades, humans have truly started to understand and study issues that threaten our environment in great depth. Modern environmental sustainability is defined as “the link between the health of nature and society, population growth, distribution of wealth and the combined approach to development, equity and conservation not new to social and environmental policy” (Oiamo 23). The definition of sustainability has transformed over time along with our knowledge and continually evolving understanding of the word. Sustainable development is a process that goes hand in hand with sustainability, however the definition is widely deliberated. Nonetheless, the most accepted definition was coined from the Brundtland Report in 1987 is “development that meets the needs of today without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs” (Oiamo 28). Succinctly, sustainable development is only using the essentials needed to preserve ourselves as of right now, and nothing more. What lead to this present-day concept of environmentalism and sustainability were economic, environmental and social shifts prior to the 1970s.These are known as the three pillars of sustainability and were contrived by environmentalists such as Ebenezer Howard and Rachel Carson.

The earth’s immense population is one of the biggest factors for environmental degradation. In the reading ‘Easter’s End’ by Jared Diamond, he discussed the extinction of the Polynesian people of Easter Island. One of the biggest reasons why they went extinct was because they wiped out their only forest, ran out of life-sustaining soil and turned to cannibalism. This

The most widely quoted definition of sustainable development is the one provided by the Brundtland Report, the report says that “sustainable development is development that meets the needs of present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs,” ( World Commission on Environment and Development,1987,p.43). According to Wall(1997) and Hunter(1995), two important ingredients are included in this statement: human needs and environmental limitations. For the World Commission, the major objective of development is to satisfy human needs and aspirations for a better quality of life for all people. In other words, sustainable development means long term economic sustainability within a framework of long term ecological sustainability plus